Free Write Friday...half an hour late...

Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.

Long work week + Home improvement project = I forgot.

This week's suggestion comes from an Anonymous Contributor, who just recently left their comment.

Okay, sorry gang, but I just wasn't feeling the suggestions this week. So I anonymously suggested my own. I know that sounds like it breaks the spontaneous spirit of Free Write Friday, but in all honesty (and we're talking 100% honesty here), I came up with it on the spur of the moment.

Becca, if I didn't alienate my readers before, I certainly have now...

But I make this promise to you all; a blog every Monday and a return of the two weekly features at the very least. I no longer have a Monday night class, and Tuesday excerpts don't really require much work on my part (well, beyond the writing of the piece from which I am excerpting, but that's most likely already been done prior to the posting, otherwise, wouldn't it just be Free Write Tuesday?), and Free Write Fridays because I know you all enjoy them so much (right? RIGHT?) So, yeah. Here goes.

This week's winning suggestion comes from Anonymous, who wins nothing for his or her shameful and cowardly anonymity:

How about a short short story about a cat that can't figure out where his owners went for the evening.

Okay!

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Friday, October 19th, 2007

They leave. They leave and it's lonely and I get scared. And right now, they've left yet again.

What's worse, though, is that sometimes they leave without checking to make sure that there's food for me to eat, like this time, they forgot to check, and there isn't any. Maybe they went to get me some. But they don't ever say anything to me, I mean...ever. They make noise and all, and I can tell they're trying to communicate...and I can understand them sometimes, like I'm pretty sure they mean me when they say, "Harris," and sometimes the male one who smells like a thousand different places tries to talk in my language, but all he ends up saying are things like, "The door," and "Ever persistent odor of centipede" and my favorite "I marked that spot already." I don't think he knows what he's saying.

But I know they didn't leave to get some, because last night the female one who smells like The Outside brought home an entire bag of the stuff they feed me. I don't know, though. Maybe they forgot about me.

I hate it when they go to The Outside, because they always come back smelling just a little bit different, like they go to some other place. They come home smelling like other cats, too, which doesn't make me jealous, except that they smell like The Little Female of Five Fingers whom I've met and don't like, or they smell like The Spotted One Who Protects Her Water, who wouldn't let me have a drink when we met. And there's another cat I can't place, whom I've never met. And dogs, sometimes. Smelly, rotten, stinky, scary big dogs.

They didn't even leave any water for me in the Little Room of Water. Sometimes, I lay down in the Upper Water Holder, because I fit in there so well. I never go into the Middle Water Holder, because that one has a lid, but there is always water in there. I also never go in the Lower Water Holder, because it holds too much water. I can drink water just fine out of the Upper Holder, but the Lower Holder is only for immersion in water. I've never been a fan of that, let me tell you.

I've been pacing The Rooms for a long time now. Through the First Room of Food, with no food or water for me, into the Second Room of Food with it's table on which they put their food, but there's none there. I've slept on my chair, his chair, her large and long chair, gone to Their Room of Sleep, gone to the Secondary Room of Sleep, and still they haven't returned. Maybe this time, they have left me for good.

Sometimes, they take me to The Outside. That scares me. It's big, there are so many smells. There are two Outsides, though. There is The Big Outside, which is through the door they always go through, and then there's The Little Outside, which is through the Almost Perpetual Barrier Door which only they can open, but I can always see through. I like going to The Little Outside, because there is less noise. But there are lots of other animals, and sometimes, through the Almost Perpetual Barrier, I see other cats. But they are never there when I get out there.

Sometimes, they take me to their Transportation Boxes, and I really get scared. They always take me to The Building of Interminable Misery, which smells like a thousand animals, and there is always another person who jabs me with strange, very long claws, and a lot of times afterwards, The Male and The Female try to give me extra drinks and foods that do not taste good, yet they insist I take, even going so far as to holding me down until I swallow.

But it has been a while since any of that has happened. And now, they're gone. I don't know if they're ever coming back, and the only things to eat are kept where only they can get to. Perhaps I'll starve. Or perhaps that Transportation Box I hear somewhere on The Outside contains them. I should run to the Always Perpetual Barrier overlooking the flowers, and see if I can see them.

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Yeah...sorry.